The Answer to Increasing Transparency Isn't More Town Halls — It's Technology

An important trend has emerged from the near-constant flow of studies into what people want from their employers. There, amid the usual compensation and flex-schedule requests, is this:

Transparency.

Employees want to understand not just the specifics of their own jobs, but the bigger picture of the entire organization — from the strategic vision right down to how their role contributes.

Quint Studer, author of the Straight A Leadership: Alignment, Action, Accountability, argues “connecting the how to the why” offers several motivational benefits – helping employees understand the external environment that affects the company, allowing employees to respond to challenges more productively, and creating consistent messaging across the organization to defeat speculative, grapevine-style gossip.

This push towards corporate transparency isn’t particularly new. Ask anyone on your internal communications team and they’ll tell you they’ve been hearing the calls for increased information from executive leadership for some time now.

And by now, at most organizations, the corporate communications team has begun sharing more and more by way of regular newsletters, scheduled roundtables, and quarterly town hall meetings.

But all that information takes time to produce — and often creates more demand for even deeper insight into the company’s inner workings.

There is a better way. One that leverages the work already being done to improve communications. One that makes internal communications more likely to be seen. And one that makes those communications more engaging to employees.

Video.

According to Forrester Research, employees are 75% more likely to watch a video than to read documents and email. Online video presentation tools enable executives and corporate communications teams to record video messages that employees can view on demand, or even live stream meetings and announcements in high definition to thousands of employees, investors, or customers across the globe.

Creating An Online Video Presentation Is Easy.

For messages you want employees to be able to see at their convenience — company news, internal program announcements, or other regular communications — a video screen capture tool can allow you to record your presentation slides and an audio track. Panopto users can capture both their screen and their webcam (as well as additional webcams), to create a more engaging video presentation.

Video can be exceptionally efficient for executive communications. Rather than spending cycles writing and rewriting emails or asking every member of the management team to be available for town halls, executives can simply click “record”, share an authentic message, and make it available to the team through the corporate YouTube.

Such online presentations can be formally planned and produced, but may be just as effective when done informally. One leading financial markets technology firm reports informal executive communication videos to be a more personalized and effective way for its leadership to engage its workforce.

And if you still aren’t ready to replace those town hall or all-hands meetings — don’t. Include video both as a means to live broadcast the event as it happens, and to make it available on demand in your video library for viewers who couldn’t attend in real time. When Mizuno’s new CEO decided to make its town hall meeting more inclusive to improve both transparency and the employee experience, it looked for an easy-to-use live streaming solution. They found Panopto. Read more about how Mizuno launched Panopto to live stream its company town hall meetings in our case study.

Video and online presentation tools are a simple way to amplify your internal communications, engage with more of your employees, and foster corporate transparency. If you’re looking for a video platform that makes online presentations easy to record, share, and search, contact our team to try Panopto free for 30 days.